Growers facing cashflow challenges due to sliding dollar and impact of El Niño
Colombia’s Ministry of Agriculture has launched liquidity measures and preferential interest rates to mitigate the impact of the falling dollar and the El Niño phenomenon on the country’s Hass avocado producers.
The move follows a meeting between the ministry and industry association CorpoHass to review the current challenges facing the sector.
During the meeting, Indalecio Dangond, the minister of agriculture and rural development, acknowledged that after a period of rapid growth, the sector was facing difficult conditions.
“Like other agricultural exporters, their cash flow engines are overheating because, as the country knows, the dollar has fallen, and we are also dealing with the El Niño phenomenon,” he said.
Faced with this scenario, CorpoHass presented a proposal structured around five strategic pillars: the renewal of 3,000ha of crops; access to financing; improved training and international certifications; risk management; and increasing export capacity. Based on these proposals, the government came up with a liquidity plan that includes rescheduling the existing loan portfolio to lower amortisation levels, designing credit lines tailored to project cash flows, and requesting that the National Tax and Customs Directorate (DIAN) expedite Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds.
Regarding the support instruments to be made available to the sector, Dangond explained that the government aims to combine incentives, insurance, and financing under more favourable terms.
“We will support them with the ICR [Rural Capital Incentive], the Agricultural Insurance Incentive against climate risks, and Special Credit Lines to help lower interest rates,” he said.
The government also highlighted the role of Hass avocados within the non-mining/energy export basket and their capacity to generate employment and economic activity in rural areas. In this regard, the minister emphasized the importance of boosting the growth of agricultural exports.
Colombia exported 88,194 tonnes of avocados worth US$168.9mn in the first six months of 2026, consolidating the fruit’s position as the second-largest generator of foreign exchange earnings amongst the country’s fresh fruit portfolio.
The sector is made up of 3,545 growers and 39,474ha of registered production, of which 82 per cent are small-scale producers, 17.5 per cent medium-scale companies, and 0.5 per cent large-scale producers.
